Sustainable Product: Personal Protective Equipment Manufactured with Green Plastic

• Autor(a) principal: Boa Vista, Hamilton Aparecido
• Data de Publicação: 2015
• Outros Autores: dos Santos, Mário Roberto, Shibao, Fábio Ytoshi
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Revista de Gestão Ambiental e Sustentabilidade - GeAS
• Texto Completo: https://periodicos.uninove.br/geas/article/view/9960
• topic: Eco-efficiency; Green Plastic; Life Cycle Assessment (LCA); Personal Protective Equipment (PPE); Sustainable Product; Evaluación del Ciclo de Vida (ECV); Eco Eficiencia; Equipo de Protección Personal (EPP); Plástico Verde; Producto Sostenible.; Avaliação do Ciclo de Vida (ACV); Ecoeficiência; Equipamento de Proteção Individual (EPI); Plástico Verde; Produto Sustentável.

This study analyzed the case of manufacturing of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) using as raw material biopolymers produced from ethanol from sugar cane, known as green polypropylene, produced since 2008 by BRASKEM. This article studied the PPE for the employee’s head protection, named helmet by NR 6, which is used in situations of exposure to weather and work scenarios in places where there is risk of impact from falling or projecting objects, burns, electric shock, and solar radiation. The MSA, green helmet manufacturer, made an inventory of greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere by comparing the two manufacturing processes of the helmet shell, covering the January 1 to December 31, 2011 period. It concluded that the sustainable helmet (green polyethylene and pigments) robs 231g of CO2 from the atmosphere per produced unit, while the helmet’s production with traditional raw materials (polyethylene and petrochemical pigments) found that, for each unit produced, 1029g of CO2 are emitted into the atmosphere. The study showed that substitution of raw materials has led to reduction in the impact generated in the helmets’ production.